Open to Change

Open to Change

Small rooms demand creative storage, yet Tim Cuppett and Marco Rini took a counterintuitive approach by putting pretty much all of their belongings on display when they bought their circa-1850 fixer-upper seven years ago in Austin. "Everything here is a reflection of us," Cuppett notes, "And prompts us to reflect more."

Before: Entryway

Before: Entryway

What would entice someone to move from a modern loft—a loft that same person describes as "sleek and minimalist, like an art gallery"— to a house listed on the National Register of Historic Places? It certainly wasn't the old house's meager 1,200 square feet that sold Austin architect Cuppett. Nor, he says, was it the "carved-up rooms," the "unfortunate kitchen," or the "garden of weeds and pea gravel."

No, it was something intangible yet inarguable that led Cuppett's partner, landscape designer Rini, to declare "We'll take it!" before he and Cuppett had even toured all the rooms or asked the price. "The house had a soul," Cuppett explains.

In this photo: The center hall before it was painted and transformed into a dining room.